Although we get a wide variety of fruits throughout the year because of our tropical climate, there are certain times of the year when some fruits plentiful more than others. For the past 3 months, and continuing, up and down the region, vines have been laden with bulbous passion fruit.
Passion fruit is tart with underlying sweetness and can be used in a variety of ways. We mostly use it in desserts and to make drinks – with and without alcohol. They make really good fruity-rummy cocktails. While many dessert recipes incorporate the fruit into a mixture, today’s recipe highlights the fruit as a dessert sauce. By this I mean a sauce that can be spooned over puddings, ice cream, cakes etc.
The sauce is very easy to make – add the pulp and sugar to a pot and bring to a boil cooking for a certain period of time. The amount of sugar you add to the pulp will be dependent on how sweet or tart you want the sauce to be. When first mixed together as they heat up, I find the mixture tastes as if it has the right amount of sugar, however, when it cools, settles and concentrates, the tartness really comes to the fore, therefore, take this into consideration when making the sauce.
For this recipe, I used 1 cup of passion fruit pulp and ¾ cup white granulated sugar. This combination gives tartness that cuts through the richness of certain desserts.
Using 1 cup of passion fruit pulp and 1 ¼ to 1 ½ cups of sugar, gives sweetness but it is not cloying sweet. There is good balance with the pronounced flavour of the fruit.
Here are the directions to make and store the sauce.
- Add the pulp and sugar to a saucepot and place over medium heat. Using a wooden or plastic spoon, stir until the sugar is dissolved. Bring the pot to a boil and reduce the heat to low and simmer for 12 minutes. The sauce will foam, remove all or some of the foam. I generally leave it because a lot of the ‘Vitamin A that gives passion fruit its rich colour is in the foam.’
- Remove the pot from heat and let cool completely before transferring to a clean glass jar. Use right away or refrigerate.
- The sauce will last as long as only clean, dry utensils are used to access it.
- Then you pour or drizzle the sauce over hot items, you will notice that is thins a little; that doesn’t take away from the potency of the sauce.
Ways to use the sauce:
- Spoon over Greek yogurt, ice creams
- Mix in to fruit salads
- Layer in trifle
- Garnish fruit soups
- Drizzle over pound cake (pairs well with chocolate cake or chocolate ice cream), cheesecake, pavlova, custards and puddings
- Stir into swank, ice tea and other fruit drinks for a complimentary flavour such as pineapple, orange, ginger and mango
